Moo

Just received a phone call from Newark, DE.  I knew exactly what it was prior to answering but answered it, anyway … in an attempt to maybe put some “slow” on this latest nuisance that’s been introduced to my life.  There was a slight delay after my “Hello” followed by a young lady, an obviously Indian young lady, giving me the standard greeting and asking how my day was going.  My response to this was that I knew exactly why she was calling me and that I could save us both some time by informing her that I had just signed on for a contract job and was not available for other work.  She then completely ignored everything I just told her and started telling me about some contract work that she was looking to fill.

After patiently listening to her well-rehearsed spiel; I, once again, informed this poor girl that I was not available and won’t be available for a year.  This is where things get a bit strange … rather than just giving up, saying something along the lines of, “Sorry to bother you.  Best of luck with your new position and have a nice day.” then ending the call, she asks me to hold, puts me on hold and transfers me to her boss.

The boss – another obvious Indian … male, this time – basically begins the whole process again from the start.  Luckily for me, he understands (or at least believes) what I am saying when I tell him the same thing I was trying to tell the other lady earlier.  This finally ends the call although I’m not getting that wasted time back in my life.

A couple minutes later and I receive an email from the same people I just spoke to.  It’s the standard, pre-formatted, “Urgent” requirement for a “Physical Design Engineer @ Sunnyvale, CA / Austin, TX / Hudson, MA.”  This one’s from a Vaishali Tyagi with Raas Infotek in Newark, DE.  Although it doesn’t explicitly state this, I can – with 100% accuracy – also tell you that this contract job is with HCL (an Indian placement company) for a project that Intel is currently doing.  “How do I know that?” you might ask.  Well, this is FAR from the first time I’ve seen that exact same email.  I’ve probably seen it, or something extremely similar to it, at least 100 times throughout the last year … it never stops.  Hell, whilst typing these last couple paragraphs after that initial phone call I spoke of above, I’ve received a call from a number identified as “Collection” from a “landline in Nevada” that was an Indian guy trying to hook me up with the same job and another call from Newark, DE – the number only varies from that original call I spoke of above by the last two digits – that was yet another Indian guy.  It never ends…

You know, I could just ignore these calls – and I often do – however, I would much prefer a way to end them.  Mind you, this is merely a side-effect of what looking for employment has become these days.  It’s that cottage industry of primarily Indian-based, technical placement companies that has arisen by having the ability to constantly parse contract job postings and potential employees from the myriad of internet-based job boards that now exist.  I guess one should never forget that, in today’s world, we’re all seen as not much more than heads of cattle to our overlords and, at least in the high-tech industries, it appears that India has taken the lead in guiding the herd to the slaughterhouses.  Or maybe that’s just how I see it…?

bis später,

Coriolis

Lather, Rinse ... REPEAT

I’m sitting in my suite at the Larkspur Landing in a city by the name of Renton, Washington. Renton, Washington?  Never heard of the place; although it is now entered in on my Google Maps as my “home.”  Don’t think it’ll be too long before that changes – I wrote a check for $500 as a deposit on an apartment up in West Seattle earlier today.  I’m not one for wasting time and, the way things are with finding decent housing these days, I figured it best I claimed my stake before it disappeared.  All’s that’s left now is the application and – assuming I qualify with said application – delivery of my crap from Nevada.  No problem…

Interestingly enough, I’m not even 100% sure that I really have landed the contract job that all this “moving to Seattle” depends on.  However, I’m not about to let such a miniscule hitch slow me down.  Nope, I’m all-in.  I seem to have been dealt a solid “start hand” – it’s that flop that kills ya, though…  Curtis, the recruiter that landed me this job, is stopping by my hotel this afternoon to get the contract signed and whatever … maybe I’ll find out more then.  Haven’t heard “word one” from Boeing since being told that the PDF I created for the non-employee badge request was deemed sufficient and “preferred” to the FAX option that Curtis was asking me to do.  I was also informed that my badge is ready to be picked up although I still have no idea where this would be done nor where I am expecting to be working – an address would be nice … as would a start day and time.  Oh well, beggars, choosers – you know what they say…

I suppose this is just a case of déjà vu all over again.  Seems to me I’ve done this before.  It was a somewhat younger me and, at that time, the whole “not speaking the language of the locals” twist was thrown in as well.  I survived – thrived, actually.  Things have got to be easier this time.  It’s just that, at one time – and not too long ago, mind you – I believed I had put these adventures of jumping blindly into the deep end behind me.  An ill-advised detour seems to have brought me a substantial distance back, however.  Here we go again…

But hey, on the positive side, I am getting the opportunity to broaden my horizons.  I still have little to no idea what this next project will actually be requiring me to do.  I’m somewhat sure that it will require at least some of the skills I already know (well, knew at one time … let’s be honest, it’s been a while) although it sounds like the largest portion of work is going to be doing things I’ve never actually done before.  I’m thinking this will be mainly a learning experience.  Nothing wrong with learning new skills although I better learn quickly – getting paid to learn things just sounds so un-capitalistic to me and we all know that, in this country, capitalism rules.

I do get the opportunity to check out the Seattle lifestyle.  The apartment I just claimed seems like an ideal basecamp for such an endeavor as well.  It’s located just a short walk from the north end of Alki Beach as well as the Seacrest Ferry Dock.  I guess this basically translates to it being pretty much a short walk to downtown Seattle.  That could be good, I suppose.  I’m kind of hoping that, by its location alone, I will have much more desire to continue my adventures that I so enjoyed back in Santa Monica.  I tried walking through the old neighborhood a few times whilst back at the parent’s but that just wasn’t the same.  It’s a big plus to actually have something interesting to see.  I do hope it doesn’t rain too much…

bis später,

Coriolis

Breathing...

So, I’m now basically waiting to “possibly” be hearing more on three job possibilities sometime soon.  “Possibly” is the key word there as I’ve been here before – been a consistent state of my life for well over an entire year to be more precise.

Two of my current possibilities are through a couple recruiters; one of which I was able to obtain an interview with the client directly – had the interview exactly one week ago today.  I have since heard through correspondence with my recruiter that I was actually one of five that was deemed worthy of an interview and was told, during said interview, that the company was in the process of “staffing up.”  I took this, at the time, to mean that they would possibly be hiring more than one engineer which I was actually glad to hear and was hoping to be one of the hires.  (Granted, the job’s actually a one-year contract to start, but I can do one year and deal with what comes afterword when it arrives…)  I heard from my recruiter now that they have “passed” on three of the interviewees, “hired” one and are currently “still deliberating” about me.  It seems they are trying to figure how I would fit in on the current planned projects.  Is that good or bad?  I don’t know.  Hopefully I’ll hear something soon…

The other recruiter-based possibility is for a company that I had been attempting to land a job with through other connections in the past.  It is, however, a job that is directly related to the military defense industry and might even require obtaining some sort of security clearance.  This time, however, the recruiter that I am using is working with a company that specializes in placing professionals in military related industries.  Will this help?  I don’t know … but the recruiter seems to be quite professional and has been sending consistent weekly updates since initially contacting me mid-December of last year.  It does seem like he’s trying…

The third opportunity that I am considering “active” is with this smaller, third-party, design services company – sounds much like a company I used to work for some 20 years ago.  This, actually, is the one I have the most hope for as it seems to be a place that I would be able to quickly get in-step with as far as work goes.  Had an initial phone screening – described to me as a “technical discussion” – with an engineer a couple weeks ago that seemed to go rather well.  Sent an email to the HR representative that I was initially corresponding with about a week ago and was told to “hang tight” along with an apology for not getting back with me earlier.  The “door is not closed” although the process has been paused due to other issues currently being dealt with.  What are these other issues?  Will they remember me when the “other issues” have been dealt with?  Will I even hear anything more from these guys?  I have no idea…

You see, that’s just the way it is these days.  Those are just the three opportunities that I am currently considering “active.”  I’ve got somewhere around 250 other positions that I have applied for at somewhere around 140 other companies throughout this last year and have absolutely no idea where I stand on many of those.  I sometimes receive rejection emails, more rarely have some sort of phone interview that goes nowhere and quite often get phone calls and emails from recruiters (almost always from recruiters of Indian decent) for positions that I have already applied for.  It’s a bit maddening.  As a side note here, those recruiters are always a waste of time … seems to be a new cottage industry created in order to find Indian engineers sponsorship opportunities for H3 or H1b visas.  They’re obviously driven by nothing more than volume.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that they actually have quotas that need to be met.

The recruiters that I am working with for the couple active possibilities I wrote of above are, interestingly enough, not of the shotgun-approach, visa-seeking variety.  They are both much more professional recruiters working with what at least appear to be solid, well-established job placement corporations for professionals.  I’m hoping that not being immediately asked to fill out an obviously standardized questionnaire asking what my “hourly rate,” “date-of-birth,” and “current visa status” is might be a good thing.  You see, that’s what you always get from the Indian recruiters.  They’ll even go as far as asking for your social security number on some occasions – for reasons that they never are able to explain.  It’s all bullshit…  I’m hoping that using actual recruiting professionals might have better results.

Of course, if I do land a job soon, all that’s going to do is kick off a process that I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ll be able to successfully accomplish.  I’m going to have to move.  Now don’t get me wrong here, I want to move – oh yes, I most definitely want to get myself an apartment somewhere and finally complete this goddamn move that I started almost a year ago – but I seem to have lost the ambition required to do anything that has even a hint of challenge to it.  When I was younger, I never questioned anything.  For quite a few years I moved almost annually to new locations.  Hell, since graduating college I’ve moved to somewhere around 20 different addresses in five different states and even lived temporarily in yet one more state and another country.  This used to be easy for me.  Now, however, the thought of all the things I would need to do keeps me up at night.  It just seems like it’s almost undoable.

Oh well, if you’ve been reading my blog, you are well aware that I am the only person to blame for what my life has become.  I suppose I’m going to need to “man up” at some time and fix this fucking mess.  I sure hope landing a job will give me some direction – assuming I can ever pull that off.  I suppose all I can do is keep trying.  It’s getting to the point where that’s becoming difficult – this “breathing” thing that I’m continuing to do seems a bit pointless…

bis später,

Coriolis

Mich-again

I’m back in Michigan.  Moved back in with the parents.  Last I posted, I had just started and ended my new job back in Santa Clara, California – all on the same day – and was just about to begin the cross-country drive.  Not really sure if I was clear enough about the ‘Route 66’ adventure not happening, however that trip did not happen.  There was – for a couple days – still a possibility of me driving back down to Santa Monica, meeting up with Craig as he flew in from Michigan and actually completing that adventure; however, it didn’t happen.  What ended up happening was me driving straight from Santa Clara (well, Fremont actually…) to Allen Park, Michigan all by myself – a quick, four-day drive down I-80.  Other than picking up a speeding ticket (102 in a 75 zone) in Nebraska, the trip was quite uneventful.  I arrived at my parent’s house on a Sunday, early in the afternoon … been living here since.

I think I actually am losing my sanity now.  Nothing seems to make sense to me lately.  It clearly now appears that I should have stuck with that crappy job I successfully landed in Santa Clara.  It most definitely would have been a nightmare – as far as jobs go – however it sure would have let me avoid many of the current situations that I find myself dealing with. First and foremost, I would have been employed.  I now have the pleasure of attempting to solve my lack of employment issue whilst living in Michigan.  This adds quite a bit of complication to a problem that I’ve been working on solving for well over a year already.

The thing is that backend, digital, ASIC, “place and route” – where my expertise is – is not something that is even done here in the Detroit Metropolitan area.  Everything – EVERYTHING – related to electrical engineering around here is directly tied to the auto industry.  It’s also 100% analog in nature.  There are jobs related to ASICs, however all of them appear to be incorporating ASICs designed elsewhere into PCB circuitry sold to auto manufacturers.  I know, “blah blah blah technical crap most people reading this could care less about” – sorry ‘bout that …  It’s just so frustrating to me.  I was hoping to perhaps find something in engineering that I could do around here, but I can’t.  My 20 years of learning more and more about less and less has made me far too specialized.  I don’t do analog circuitry – I don’t remember what I “learned” in college some 25 years ago.

My next plan at solving my lack of job issue was to just throw away my experience and change fields completely.  Didn’t really have an idea about what I wanted to do nor how I would get into it – still don’t.  I applied for a job with Guitar Center as something called an “Operations Associate” as the job posting made it appear that no experience was needed and that training would be provided.  Sent my resume along with a cover letter that I typed up explaining that I was trying to change careers as I figured they would wonder why someone with my resume was applying.  Never heard anything back from that…

Considered (and am still possibly considering) trying to get some sort of IT job but don’t really know what training I would need.  Seems like it’s all very specialized towards what is needed for the specific job one has.  Since, I have no specific job, this makes me hesitant to spend any money and time taking a class that may never be useful for me.  I don’t know … maybe I’m overthinking things…

I’m currently back to looking for a job in my field – as specialized as it is.  Translation – I am looking for a job somewhere other than here.  I’ve got a couple leads for contract positions in California and Texas although I have been applying to opportunities anywhere in the country – even applied to several positions in Canada though I have heard nothing back on those.  I’m basically back to what I was doing prior to landing the job in Santa Clara.  Now, however, I am doing it from Michigan rather than California.  Getting pretty much the same results though – had a few phone interviews resulting in me waiting to hear more and many applications sent resulting with no reply at all.  Sometimes I get rejection emails, but usually I get nothing.  It’s now well over 200 opportunities that I have applied for since deciding to give up on poker.

This decision to move back in with my parents has also introduced several issues that caught me a bit off guard – all related to my car.  Granted, some of these issues only exist because of my pride.  I do realize that, although I do like my car, it is just a car; however, it is a 2002 Firehawk.  It’s a limited edition (only 1501 were built) model with slightly more than 60k miles.  It’s rarely (very rarely) been driven in rain and never been driven in snow.  Although it was involved in a couple accidents in California, I made sure all repairs were completed by professionals.  I’ve done the best I could to take care of this car.  Now I’m back in Michigan.

Michigan, as many of you may already be aware, is pretty much the worst place for vehicles.  The roads are a freaking mess – more potholes than pavement – and when winter comes around things really become a nightmare.  They spray the roads with salt.  Salt doesn’t do good things to cars.  The whole idea of driving my over-powered, rear-wheel-drive car on the icy, salt-covered roads of southeast Michigan throughout the winter makes me cringe.  So … I’ve decided to put my Firehawk in storage.  Now I have no car (well, I “have” one … in storage).  I’ll be needing to purchase a vehicle if I stay here.  So there’s that now…

I was able to obtain a Michigan driver’s license without much hassle; however, was unable to register my car.  I did change my car insurance from California to Michigan; unfortunately, I could not complete a Michigan registration due to not having a title for my car.  I might “have” a title but, if I do, it would be located in my file cabinet.  My file cabinet just so happens to currently be residing in a storage unit somewhere in Nevada along with the rest of my possessions.  You see, apart from my car and few select things I decided to take with me to Santa Monica, everything I own was packed in a truck by the movers I hired in Henderson and taken to storage.  I’m supposed to get an apartment and give that address to the movers at some point to get my stuff delivered.  That’s a bridge I suppose I’ll be jumping off sometime in the future … assuming I ever get myself an apartment and who the hell knows if that’s ever going to happen…?  But, as usual, I digress … back to what I was talking about…

Now I’m working on obtaining a duplicate title for my vehicle – no easy task here…  My initial guess was to try the California DMV.  I filled out a California “Title Application” and sent it, along with a brief letter of explanation as well as a money order for $21 – the duplicate title fee, to the California DMV in Sacramento.  I “should” have taken the moment required to look at my current, still valid, California registration prior to doing this.  It clearly states that no title was issued for this registration.

Okay, so a bit of an explanation on what I have since discovered is in order here.  Apparently, in some states a vehicle can be registered without a title.  Not sure exactly which states are included in the complete list, however both California and Nevada allow this.  I now know this as I did exactly that in both California (twice, actually) and Nevada.  Michigan, however, does not allow this.  In Michigan the owner of a vehicle must possess a valid title to said vehicle in order to obtain registration and plates.  So that got me to wondering exactly how the hell I was going to get a copy of my title…

After looking into things a bit, I was able to discover that I had paid off my loan for this car back in 2008.  I was still “technically” living in Colorado then; although I was “actually” living in California.  For you see, I owned a house in Colorado where my car was stored.  It was apparently in 2008 that I decided to bring my car with me to California.  The reason I believe this is because I was able to discover from the California DMV that the first year my car was registered in California was 2009.  Interestingly enough, it was registered without a title…  This leads me to believe that I need to be going through the Colorado DMV in an attempt to get a duplicate title.  It does appear that it was registered as a Colorado vehicle when the loan was paid off.

I called the Colorado DMV to see if they’d be able to help me with this and basically discovered that, in Colorado, bureaucracy rules.  They told me that I needed to fill out and send in a “Record Search Request” (form DR2489a) to see if a title for my vehicle is in their system and then, if it is, I should fill out and send in a “Duplicate Title Request” (form DR2539a) to request a duplicate title be sent to me.  I then asked if they might be able to save me some time and let me know if the title was in their records over the phone and was told that they couldn’t do that because there was no way to prove I was who I was claiming to be.  What I ended up doing was sending in the “Search Request” followed by the “Title Request” a few days later.  The way I figure it is, if the “Title Request” comes back to me requesting some kind of missing information, I should have the information by then from the “Search Request” I filed.  If I’m lucky, the information I put in the “Duplicate Title Request” will be sufficient and I’ll get my title…

Oh yeah, and to add to this, I’m also a bit in the dark on whether or not the title – should it be found in the Colorado DMV records – will be in my name.  There is still somewhat of a possibility that the lien from the loan was never removed in Colorado.  That was supposed to have been done when I registered my car after paying off the loan … but I don’t think I registered the car in Colorado again after the loan was paid off.  I suppose the lien may still be on my car’s title.  I was able to get a lien release document from the credit union … just in case.  I’m still waiting for this mess to sort itself out…

The latest twist in this pathetic story that is my life is that Ray, one of my oldest friends, is basically offering me a job whilst I continue to look for work.  Yeah, it’s as strange as it sounds and that’s what’s bothering me the most about it.  He’s offering me a chance to work at his company in pretty much a secretarial role as a way for me to earn some money and possibly move out of my parent’s place.  I really do appreciate the offer however I don’t think I could do that.  If I took the job, I would need to get a vehicle.  I suppose that’s not too big a deal, I’m pretty sure I could pick up something half-way decent for a few grand.  What happens, however, if I then land one of the jobs I am trying to get?  I suppose I could sell the vehicle I purchased, but how much of a pain would that be?  Remember now that the jobs I am trying to land all require me to be moving most likely quite far from Michigan.

As for moving out of my parent’s house, I would love to.  Once again though, what happens if I land a job?  I don’t know … I suppose I could always break the lease of any apartment I got although I would need to once again have my possessions (assuming I ended up getting them delivered from Nevada) moved again to wherever the job I landed was.  Getting an apartment of my own would probably be the smart thing to do though as the office for Ray’s company is actually located down in Toledo, Ohio.  I don’t think driving daily between Allen Park and Toledo makes too much sense – heck, the gas cost alone would make the whole endeavor somewhat pointless…

Besides, I can’t screw over my buddy like that.  I fully realize he’s going out of his way to offer me assistance, but what kind of worker would I be if my main goal was finding work elsewhere?  I need to be able to open my schedule for any interviewing that may be required on my job search and I have absolutely no idea how frequently time off would be needed for that.  Heck, there’s been four days in the last couple weeks that I would have needed to be away from work for interviews.  I’m hoping that my interviewing may soon become even more frequent and who knows if I may be needing to travel somewhere for an interview…?  It just seems to me that this whole looking for a job these days is a job of its own.  If I agree to work with Ray’s company, I would feel obligated to do that job as well as I could.  Right now, I just feel that this job hunt I am currently on would get in the way…

I suppose another option here would be to take the job with Ray as a change in career.  It wouldn’t pay even close to what I expect to be able to get should I land a job in my current (“former,” I suppose, when the whole poker bullshit is taken into account) career however that’s assuming I am ever able to actually land a job.  I don’t know … seems like the last few phone interviews I had went decently but you never know these days – will they end up like all the other interviews I’ve had this last year?  I sure hope not…

Oh well … I’m planning on meeting up with Ray tomorrow down in Toledo.  Maybe talking with him will give me some direction…

bis später,

Coriolis

The End of a New Beginning

Well fuck me … that was quick.  Drove the 348 miles from Santa Monica to Fremont a couple days ago.  Was planning on making my new home up in the Silicon Valley – somewhere not too far from the job that I got in Santa Clara.  I had my concerns – mainly about the cost of living and the fact that I needed to somehow find an apartment after not having any provable steady income for the last damn near five years – but I was determined.  Sure, I let myself get low-balled on the salary aspect for this new job (side note here:  NEVER, EVER discount your self-worth … NEVER!) and I knew this was going to make things, in general, a bit more difficult.  Just how much more didn’t really sink in until I began my stay at the “extended stay” hotel where I am currently sitting and writing up this blog post.  You need to be getting paid very well around here if you ever want to feel any sense of security.  I so desperately miss the sense of security that I once had…

Showed up yesterday to my new job.  Arrived at the building at 10:21am – the recruiter that I was working with to land this job had informed me earlier that I was “scheduled” to begin work at 10:30am.  Nobody was there to meet me.  The glass doors to the office were locked and the reception area was completely empty as far as any human lifeforms were concerned.  There was a note taped to one door instructing somebody (I forget the name, but it wasn’t me…) to ring the doorbell if their card didn’t work so that someone could come let them in.  Sure enough, I discovered what appeared to be a doorbell just above one of those magnetic card readers over to the right of these main doors.  I rang it.

Not too long after, some guy showed up in the reception area.  He looked at me standing there with an expression that demonstrated he was most definitely not expecting to have been seeing me.  He did, however, open the doors and I introduced myself and said that I was scheduled to be beginning work there today (well, yesterday, but you get the gist…).  I mentioned the name of the recruiter that told me to be there and was instructed to have a seat whilst he attempted to call her.  Don’t think he ever spoke with anyone on the phone – if memory serves me correctly … I was in a bit of a state of bewilderment at what was happening and hadn’t really had any decent sleep for the last couple of nights prior to this – however he then escorted me into the main office area and asked me what kind of work I did.  Told him I was there to do Digital Place and Route, Physical Design work and I believe I mentioned the names of the engineers that I interviewed with – well, an engineer and a VP of Engineering that I interviewed with.  Figured this would help as this guy was also claiming to be a VP of Engineering – not the same one I interviewed with, however.  He then began leading me toward the cube-farm area of the physical design engineers and told me to take a seat in any cube.  He would try to get ahold of the recruiter I mentioned and send her over.

So, here’s where I really started questioning exactly what I’ve gone and gotten myself into.  We walked through the office – aisle after aisle and row after row of empty cubicles containing a vast assortment of random shelving structural pieces, “parts” of computers (mainly monitors, cables and keyboards that all appeared to not have been used in years) and extremely worn office furniture – leather on chairs that, for large swaths, was no longer leather.  I walked through this junk yard and settled down on one of the better-looking chairs in one of the many, many available empty cubicles.  It was then that this other VP of Engineering gave me the general direction to where I could find coffee or tea while I waited and pretty much disappeared.  I found my way to the break room, got myself some tea (would have been coffee, but none was made and I wasn’t about to be so presumptuous as to brew an entire urn of coffee just for me…) and headed back to the cube I claimed to wait.  Wasn’t sure exactly what I was waiting for, but my selection of “things to do” seemed to be limited to one – wait…

There was a guy sitting in the cube across from the one I selected.  He appeared to be busy with something on his laptop computer.  He was obviously not the least bit interested in why I was there and did a great job of just ignoring me completely.  Not sure what he was doing – none of my business, I suppose – although I decided to do the “neighborly thing” and introduce myself.  I got his name.  Don’t remember what it was.  It was, as they almost always are in my industry, very very Indian in nature – not that there’s anything wrong with that; I just have a lot of difficulty remembering names in general … Indian names, no chance.  Found out that he, too, was there to do Digital PnR work and that was that.  He went back to what he was doing on his laptop and we never spoke again.  I went back to my doing nothing but waiting … slowly growing more and more concerned about the situation…

I believe I spent approximately a half hour sitting there sipping on my tea, waiting for what’s to come next and sending out an update to my friends on Facebook as sort of a desperate cry for help before I overheard my name being mentioned in a conversation occurring a few cube rows away.  I decided to head in that direction to see if maybe somebody involved in it might have a clue as to why I was there.  The recruiter I was expecting to meet was part of this conversation as well as a couple other guys.  One presented me with a laptop and we all headed back to the cube I was now living in.  They asked me if I had been able to access my work email account and I informed them that I had.  They then dropped a couple IP addresses which I took note of (having absolutely no idea why I was being told these) and mentioned something about sending an email to a specific address that I also took note of.  It was all very cryptic and absolutely nothing was making any sense to me.  What were they expecting me to do?  I wasn’t given any direction whatsoever.  I was then asked if I had read “the” email.  What email?  The only email I had received prior to starting work was informing me of my work email account.  I received no email at my new account as of then.

This was going nowhere.  Figured the best thing I could do at this point was to switch on the laptop they gave me (a piece of shit 2012 model with a Windows 7 and an Intel CORE i5 sticker on the palm rest) and basically show them the email I received.  This I did.  Apparently “the” email was never sent.  Hell, I still do not know what “the” email was … perhaps I read it later that day – I really don’t know.  It was then that one of the guys (the engineer I had interviewed with about a week earlier) mentioned something about me setting up my VNC and reading emails to get up to speed on where the project was and they all left.  Okay … what now…?

Figured I might as well begin by configuring this laptop to my likings.  Creating bookmarks for my work email account, maybe doing some interface customization … you know, the standard shit you do when you receive a new computer.  I started doing that.  That’s when I discovered just how out-of-date this machine actually was.  It was originally running Windows 7 as clearly shown by the sticker on the palm rest, however it had been upgraded to Windows 10 at some point.  It was actually in mid-update mode as the “Shut down” and “Restart” selections had the familiar “Update and” text appended to both.  (Oh yeah, and as a side note, I mentioned to the guy that appeared to be the IT-guy that I was trying to update this machine and got the gut-wrenching response about him basically not liking updates.  It always bothers me when IT departments ignore updates to computer equipment … just seems lazy.  These updates are usually released for valid reasons.  Granted they sometimes cause issues to current procedures in IT, however that doesn’t mean they should just be ignored.  But I digress…)  I selected the “Update and Restart” followed by checking for the existence of any more updates to the operating system (it was now fully updated) and then ran DELL’s “Support Assist” tool to see if I could fix the driver issue that was being reported and discovered that this machine was actually two firmware versions behind in its BIOS.

I was able to flash one update to the firmware successfully although the driver issue was not resolved.  Couldn’t update the BIOS to the later firmware version, though.  Something about the computer not having the correct specs – whatever, I left it where it was.  I do believe that this was exactly why the machine was reporting the driver issue but didn’t want to waste too much time on my first day at the new job basically doing what should have been done by their IT department years ago.  No, I needed to start figuring out how to do some real work.  Nobody seemed to want to tell me anything, though.  I did receive a few emails related to PuTTY and VNC settings which were not much help other than giving me an initial password and saying I needed to change it.  I did accomplish this and figured out how to login to a server (exactly what server it was is anyone’s guess) and start a VNC session that I was able to view on my laptop.  Yippee … who cares?  Nobody was giving me anything to do…

That was basically the way my entire day went.  I was giving myself bullshit, busy-work tasks to complete to be prepared for when I might need to actual do such tasks and basically trying to make heads or tails out of the several group emails that I obtained access to at some point in the day.  In time, it became clear to me what this project actually was.  It’s an older project that they’re trying to resurrect.  That’s never good.  Projects die for a reason – often times several reasons.  Why did this project die?  Why are they trying to restart it?  Why does this office look like a freaking junk yard?  Why did they give me a six-year-old computer to use?  Why didn’t they even supply me with a mouse?  Why, on Earth, are they using Office 365 through web browsers rather than installing the “Office apps” on the laptops like all other professional businesses do?  What the hell is going on here?!?!?

The final straw came for me when I decided to ask the engineer I interviewed with where I might be able to get a mouse to use.  His response was to basically look for one in all the junk lying around and started going through random drawers in various cubicles looking for a mouse that might be there.  Seriously???  This is a professional business???  I think not.  He then mentioned that I could ask that IT guy and we both headed over to do this.  His response, after looking through the junk on his desk and not finding one – he could put a req. in for a mouse although all purchase requests needed to be okayed and signed off for by this company’s CEO.  Holy fucking shit!  Really?!?  The CEO needs to sign-off on the purchase of a mouse for an engineer?  This company IS screwed.  That’s when I quit.

No … they weren’t paying me nearly enough to get on that sinking ship.  Pathetically enough, I now get to fall back to my original, pre-Santa Clara plan.  I’m moving back in with my parents … at least for a little while.  Exactly how I’m getting home is still an open issue.  Nothing in my world plays out as expected.  I am planning to check out of this hotel much earlier than I booked it for – most likely tomorrow.  Luckily the manager here is taking pity on me and only charging me for one week (for the three nights I was here) as opposed to the 30-days that is the usual charge for early check-out on a booking scheduled for longer than a month – I had this room booked through the 20^th of October (some 32 days from today).  It’s still not cheap and basically just more to add to what this fiasco ended up costing me.  Any way you look at it, this latest adventure is nothing more than another huge mistake.  I sure hope my luck is better for this long drive I have coming up…

bis später,

Coriolis

A New Beginning

Looks like the ‘Route 66’ trip is officially off.  The one-way ticket from Detroit to Los Angeles that I purchased about a week and a half ago for my buddy won’t be used (I suppose I need to investigate possibly getting a refund on that…).  No … I won’t be driving some 2500 miles east, north-east to move back in with my parents in a bit over a week as I have been planning.  I will, however, be loading up my car and driving some 300 miles north on Sunday – four days from today.  I’ll be heading for a hotel in Santa Clara where I have booked an “extended stay” for a month.  For you see, I appear to have landed a job today…

It’s a bit strange.  I’ve been trying quite hard to find a job once again doing what I was basically training to do for the first 23 years of my life … been damn near an entire year now.  As I mentioned in earlier posts to this blog that nobody reads, I wasn’t having much luck.  Primarily due to the four-year hole that I put in my resume – mid-life crisis delusion of grandeur … you know, same-ole same-ole…  In fact, just two days ago I was still waiting to receive an email scheduling an initial phone interview with a company down in San Diego.  Never received that email and, in fact, never had the phone interview that was scheduled to have happened by no later than yesterday (“3-5 business days” from when I got the initial email notification…).  I did, however, receive a phone call yesterday morning from a different company – one of the other 90 or so companies that I had sent applications to.  A couple calls yesterday, a few calls today and “Viola!” I got a job.

Now, to be completely honest here, what I currently have is a one-month contract (1099 work) that, if I am able to demonstrate my usefulness, will turn into a full-time job with benefits.  Their VP of Engineering just wasn’t sold on hiring me directly full-time because of that damn resume hole; however, I somehow convinced him to let me prove myself.  I’m not too worried though, with some 20-years’ experience doing this work prior to my hiatus, I believe it’ll come back to me in no time.  I had no problem completing the small contract job I picked up earlier this summer.  No, I know what I’m doing.  I’m sure I’ll be able to pitch-in…

Why then am I feeling such malaise?  That is the question that I am currently trying to figure out.  I suppose it’s most likely a combination of things.  For starters, I was actually beginning to look forward to doing the ‘Route 66’ trip with my buddy.  Spoke to him on the phone today and found out that he, as well, was looking quite forward to the adventure – said he’s been working long hours at a side-job in an effort to get more money for the trip.  Made me feel bad to tell him that it was no longer scheduled to be happening.

I was also looking quite forward to moving back to the old stomping grounds.  Sure, I would have been moving back in with my parents for some unknown amount of time and, truth be told, that’s actually somewhat pathetic for a man my age; however, it would have given me the opportunity to spend some more time with them while they’re still around – nobody lives forever…  That and I would have been able to hang out with many of my old friends on a more frequent basis than I get to when it’s only during trips back home around holidays.

I don’t know, seems to me that what I am doing here is once again letting money become more important than life.  We all (well, most of us at least…) seem to do this for a large portion of our lives.  For most, though, the choice is a necessity.  It costs quite a bit to raise a family these days.  I have no family to raise … never even been married.  My choice is far more selfish – it’s merely to make sure that I can take care of myself financially after retirement.  From all the stories I’ve read in the news, seems to me one can never have enough put aside to survive retirement these days.  We’re all just rats in cages destined to be running on our hamster wheels until we drop dead.  Jobs of the olden days used to provide people with pensions after they retired – those are, for the most part, gone now … merely ideas that seem to only have been myths to today’s working class.  Sure, there’s Social Security – for now – but what’s that get you?  Will it be enough to continually let you pay the consistently increasing rent for as long as you need?  I doubt it – that’s kind of why IRAs and 401k’s exist – you’re most likely going to need more.  And just exactly how much more is anyone’s guess.  That pretty much depends on how long you end up living.  Usually that’s an unknown…

Oh well, que sera, sera … I emailed the signed contract back for this job.  Decision made.  Right or wrong, I’m going to be starting work Monday morning.  I actually do think it’s most likely what is best.

bis später,

Coriolis

Adulting

So hey, there’s this guy named Murphy … and he’s got a law named after him.  Seems to me that my life – most notably of late – is little more than justification of his law.  Case in point – I purchased my buddy a plane ticket to fly out here to Los Angeles last Sunday.  The flight wasn’t for last Sunday, but for a couple weeks from now when I am currently planning to drive the old ‘Route 66’ all the way from Santa Monica to Chicago and then continuing on to my parent’s house in Allen Park, Michigan.  My buddy also lives in Allen Park, so he was the perfect choice to join me on this adventure.  Two days after purchasing the flight for my buddy, I received an email from one of the plethora of jobs I applied to stating that they wanted to conduct a phone interview with me in the next 3-5 business days.  The job, should I land it, is of course in San Diego.  This adds a bit of a wrinkle to my plans…

I now wonder if I’ll be making the trip back to my parent’s house.  I suppose that all depends on how the interview process for this job goes.  Two weeks, however, isn’t nearly enough time to “complete” an interview process and actually land a job these days … heck, it’s going to take 3-5 business days just to possibly get the initial phone interview done.  Something tells me that, even if everything goes just swimmingly with the interviews, I’m not going to have any concrete job offer in two weeks … although my housing situation is scheduled to become basically void in two weeks – that’s primarily why I am planning to head back to my parent’s house.  So, do I drive back to Michigan only to then land a job in San Diego?  Seems a bit non-optimal to me…

I suppose, if the interviewing procedure appears to be going well in the next couple of weeks, I theoretically could find some short-term, furnished housing in San Diego and basically move there until I either land the job or not.  If I don’t land the job though, I would then find myself in a very awkward living position.  I’m sure I would be paying a premium for the furnished housing and any lease that I would need to have signed to live there is also an unknown.  Would I need to break it?  I would most definitely need to be moving – probably back to Michigan – although I would be lower on funds and less likely to be able to arrange for a buddy to join me on my trip this time … most people do have lives they need to lead and don’t have unlimited free-time…

I don’t know … maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill here.  To be honest, I’m expecting this upcoming interview to go down in flames.  Several other interviews I’ve had this last year – which, by the way, seemed to go just fine – ended up becoming nothing.  Why am I thinking this one’ll be any different?  I initially thought it was for a position that a former colleague of mine gave me a referral for – it wasn’t.  It’s actually for one of the other positions that I applied to at the same company – different location, different hiring manager, no referrals.  I’m not giving it high odds of working out.  Maybe that’s for the best.  The more I think about it, the more heading home and finding a job where I can just eke out a living sounds like the best plan.  Granted, I won’t be raking in nearly as high a salary; however, I’m giving up on the whole idea of becoming rich.  Who needs the headaches, right…?

I guess I’ll see where this goes in the next couple of weeks.  Nothing's ever simple anymore.  This adulting thing is anything but what was expected when I was a child.

bis später,

Coriolis

I'm Somebody!

Woo-hoo! I’m a somebody!

My office phone – the one that’s been sitting on my desk since I started working here last October – is fully functional. And by that, I mean that it will now ring when the number is dialed as well as take a message if I am not here to answer it. This may not seem like a big thing to pretty much anybody; but I see it as a step in some direction – perhaps the right direction…?

You see, when I started working here, I attempted to configure the voice mail on this phone. The main reason was to hopefully get the message waiting indicator to stop flashing. I figured that the messages most likely weren’t for me and, in the off chance that somebody was to call my phone and leave a message, resetting the indicator would be a good thing. I was, however, completely unable to access the phone’s voicemail features even with the handy NEAXMail AD-8 USER GUIDE and company provided Voice Mail Instruction printout as references. I could get to the company directory (which, of course, I was not included in) but never could figure out how to reach my extension’s voice mail.

Turns out that something was screwed up in the phone network and my extension (2831 – as clearly displayed on the business cards I received) wasn’t accessible at all. I could make outgoing calls from this phone, but there was no known method for getting this phone to receive incoming calls. This, of course, pretty much made my business cards useless… Oh well, what did I care? If anyone needed to contact me, they could always call my cell number. I even suggested that my cell number be used for my business cards however, when I received the cards, the inoperable number was on them.

Today, however, things are looking up! The phone is now completely functional on my extension – 2830. My business cards are still useless due to the old, incorrect number but the problem with the state-of-the-art phone networking system has been solved and I am also now even included in the company directory. As I said, I’m now a somebody… I suppose I could just hand-edit the cards and change all the 1’s to 0’s but that’s kind of tacky. Something tells me that a new set of business cards are already in the works – I didn’t request any but it wouldn’t surprise me too much if they just suddenly showed up – when it’s something I really could care less about, it usually works out … it’s those damn relevant issues that seem to give me trouble…

What? You’re still reading this nonsense? I figured that nobody would make it past paragraph 2…

bis später,

Coriolis

A Bit of a Commute

Okay, so I did it. Well, as of Monday I will have done it. I took a job that, according to MapQuest.com, is actually located some 1086.46 miles from my registered, legal residence. Talk about a long commute to work…

This should be rather interesting. My plan is to basically rent housing out here in California and keep my house back in Colorado as my primary residence. I wonder if that’s even a legally viable option…? Sure, why not? This is America – the land of the free! I suppose I can do whatever I want, right? After all, I’m going to be the one paying mortgage payments for the house, utility bills (once again, for the house in Colorado) and rent for my housing in California. As long as the bills are being paid, I guess I can live however I want. It won’t be cheap, but I’m up for the challenge…

Although I am now getting a much deeper understanding of the old Benjamin Franklin axiom that, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” I’m actually completely lost on how this latest lifestyle change is going to impact my tax status. Can’t be good though… I guess I get to pay California taxes on my income (being that all of my income is being earned in that state) and property taxes in Colorado. I wonder what an out-of-state residency does to state income taxes … anything…?

Oh well, April’s coming soon enough and I’m sure that I’ll get a crash-course on this subject. Heck, I’m still curious as to what needs to be done with the income earned in Germany last year. So far I have received nothing from Dagmar (my German accountant) nor the German government although something tells me that it’s just a matter of time. The Germans aren’t well-known for letting things fall through the cracks. I’m sure that, sometime this year, I’ll be receiving a letter that I won’t be able to understand containing lots of Achtung!’s. I suppose I should send Dagmar an email…

Bottom line with all this is that I suppose I should just deal with the issues and be thankful that I have a job. It’s apparently becoming more and more of a rarity these days. Not only that, but the job that I have landed ain’t too shabby. I was very hesitant to make the transition from contractor to full-time employee; but I couldn’t turn down a 6-figure salary, 5-figure sign-on bonus, thousands of stock options, health insurance and a 401K plan. Opportunities like this don’t come around very often. So life might be a bit more complicated for a while, but I think I’ll make do … after all, they made an offer I couldn’t refuse…

Who knows? Maybe the end result of all this will be the early (well, earlier than many…) retirement that I’ve always dreamt about…

bis später,

Coriolis